The application must record time stamps for audit records that can be mapped to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

If time stamps are not consistently applied and there is no common time reference, it is difficult to perform forensic analysis.

Time stamps generated by the application include date and time. Time is commonly expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a modern continuation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or local time with an offset from UTC.

Review the system documentation and interview the application administrator for details regarding application architecture and logging configuration.

Identify the application components and the logs associated with the components.

If the application utilizes the underlying OS system clock, and the system clock is mapped to UTC or GMT, this is not a finding.

Identify where clock settings are configured within the application.

Access the configuration settings and determine if the application is configured to set the time stamps for audit records according to UTC or GMT (e.g., East coast standard time is represented as GMT -5, east coast daylight savings time is represented as GMT-4).

If the application is not configured to map to UTC or GMT, this is a finding.

Configure the application to use the underlying system clock that maps to relevant UTC or GMT timezone.